26 May Can Time Between Screening Colonoscopies Be Extended?

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Nastazja Dagny Pilonis, MD
Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center
Institute of Oncology, Warsaw, Poland

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Currently recommended 10-year interval between screening colonoscopies is based on the limited evidence. We decided to assess what is the risk of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer death after singe negative screening colonoscopy.

 MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?

Response: The most interesting finding is that after high-quality colonoscopies, the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) and colorectal cancer death remained very low and stable throughout the entire 17.4 years of observation.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Our findings confirm that 10-year interval between high-quality screening colonoscopies is safe and there is no benefit from more frequent screening. Furthermore, the findings suggest that this interval could even be prolonged, provided that baseline colonoscopy is high-quality. We know how to measure quality and we can use well established, universal quality indicators such as: adenoma detection rate, bowel preparation and cecal intubation.

MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Response: There are two other highlights of this study I would like to mention: our findings showed that high quality is key for the profound long-term efficacy of screening colonoscopy among women and in the proximal colon.

In the view of previous studies, these findings are of paramount importance. Previous studies had shown that women do not benefit from screening colonoscopies as much as men. We also observed this difference in our results when we considered all performed colonoscopies. However, when we looked at high-quality colonoscopies only, we observed that the risk of colorectal cancer was the same for both women and men. There was no difference between genders.

Our findings on the risk of proximal colorectal cancer and death from proximal colorectal cancer also are surprising. Previous studies had questioned the efficacy of colonoscopies in the proximal colon as opposed to the distal colon.

We found that high-quality colonoscopy results in not only lower risk of proximal CRC incidence, but also reduced mortality from proximal colorectal cancer. This reduction was not seen after low-quality colonoscopies.

There are two other highlights of this study I would like to mention: our findings showed that high quality is key for the profound long-term efficacy of screening colonoscopy among women and in the proximal colon.

Citation:

Annals of Internal Medicine 0 0:0

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Last Updated on May 26, 2020 by Marie Benz MD FAAD